The Anvil
by mynameisginster
Summary: Erend is sure his fate is too much for him to bear. His shoulders are strong, but not strong enough to carry his sisters legacy. But as he and Aloy hunt for Ersa's fate, he learns that being broken is no excuse, and that there are fates in the world that are worse than his. If she can carry the world, he can carry a city. Maybe, if he gets stronger, she'll let him help carry hers.
1. Prologue

_For the Carja the Sun dictates the fate of their lives._  
_Their destiny is as fixed as the path of the sun across the skies._

_For the Banuk, life is a song that was written eons ago._

_For the Nora, their lives and stories are a blessing of the All-Mother, inherited by birth._

_The Oseram have no such notion._

**For them, life is an anvil, and their destiny is theirs to be forged.**


	2. Fire And Fury

The sun perches in the middle of the sky, burning the red clay beneath his heavy boots. There are no shadows to hide in, but that matters little to him.

Usually.

In the two years he had been living in Meridian, Erend had grown accustomed, even fond of the heat.  
Today however, was a particular bad day to sit in the desert, waiting for a clever girl that could see the unseen.

_She will come. She will find them. I will kill them._

He repeats the words in his head, like a mantra, trying to block out everything, because otherwise, he _will_ go insane.

Two days ago he had thought that the closest he would ever come to avenging his sister would be by smashing the head of every Shadow Carja he'd ever meet. He'd been stranded with a sister-shaped hole in his heart, his body, his whole being, and a legacy he was not at all prepared to handle. The only thing to fill the hole had been alcohol, and with it, promised equilibrium, even if only for a few hours.

Of course, that hadn't worked. On the bottom of every tankart had been her face, sometimes looking the way it had when she was alive, sometimes smashed in and cold, the way she was lying in a chamber somewhere beneath the palace right now. Somehow, she'd managed to look disappointed even then, and his nausea had had only so much to do with the alcohol ravaging in his system.

But there had been nothing he could _do._

Nothing, until he'd heard his name at the gates through his drunken stupor, and suddenly she was there, miraculously alive, still brazen, still striking, and not at all impressed with his drunken appearance.

_I need you to pull yourself together._

Back in the Embrace he had told her that she reminded him of his sister, and now her words felt like they came straight from Ersas cold, dead lips. _Pull yourself together._  
Shame had rushed over him, and he had fumbled to pull Aloy aside and himself together.

The shame still lingers now, because while he can't remember every detail of what they'd talked about at first, his head distracted with the daze of his drunkenness, with her questions, with the redness of her hair, he can remember the way he'd made a bung out of himself.

Aloy was all questions and business, and he'd tried to pull it together, but most of this conversation had been lost to him. What he does remember is the way her face changed from fierce and demanding to an almost shy compassion, as she offered her condolences. She'd told him she'd lost someone too, and in his grief, because he'd just heard it too fucking often in the last days, he'd snapped at her.

He wondered if that was the reason why she'd refused to come here at first. If so, he'd deserve nothing less for being an idiot, but he couldn't imagine Aloy being that hard-hearted. No, if she didn't show, it was because she couldn't. The part of him that wasn't a grief-stricken, selfish bastard recognized that she had as much avenging to do as he did.

But it was hard being reasonable when it took her all of fifteen minutes to find enough evidence in Olin's basement to confirm her theories. He hadn't understood all the details, but he had understood that Olin had betrayed them, even if he did so to save his family. What else he had understood though, was that Aloy is the key he needed to find the people who had taken Ersa.

_Red Ridge Pass?… I'll see what I can do._

He hopes she'd meant it.

When they departed in the street, each of them busy with preparations and eager to get on the road- the same road, hopefully- she'd turned around to him, her jaw firm as always, her eyes apprehensive, but not unkind.

_If we do this, I need you to be there. Fully._

The shame was back then, and burned enough through him to give space to reason. So he had pulled himself together. He'd packed his things and had forgone the ale, but steel to his bones, it had been hard.

So here he is, two days later, smoldering in the forge-like heat of Red Ridge Pass, wondering what is drier: the sparse patches of grass or his tongue. The hangover had passed yesterday, literally sweated out of his system as he'd made his way north, but now the withdrawal is creeping through his veins, giving him a different kind of headache.  
His whole body's hot, sweaty, tingling from inaction. His head throbbing from the heat, from the non-existing alcohol his body craved, from all the thoughts and pictures he desperately tries not to let into his mind.

Erend looks up, but the sun hasn't moved.

_A day. I'll give her one more day to show up._

That is all he could give before he'll collapse, sleep had been steadily evading or meeting him with nightmares.

A fly lands on his head and he brushes it away with poorly suppressed frustration. He feels like a bow drawn taunt, ready to spring.

_Ready to break._

His mouth has never been this dry, he's sure. Before his head can start imagining the taste of cool ale, he grabs his canteen, swallowing the last bits of water. It doesn't worry him, there's a stream just down the ridge, but it's crawling with Snapmaws. It's a testimony to his condition that suddenly the thought of six Snapmaws seems like a blessing to him.  
They're something to hit, they're filled with ice, it is something to _do. _

Without further thought, his hammer is in his hands and his feet are moving down the ridge. Stealth has never been Erend's strenght- he doesn't have the build for it- but now, he isn't even trying. Which is promptly proven by a loud, resounding screech that makes his right ear go numb.

It's a matter of seconds, but he dives to the side just as the Longleg jumps to where he stood a moment ago, the vents in its body releasing a blast of fire into the air. Erend staggers and draws himself up just in time to see the red lenses of two Watchers appear out of the underbrush. Next to him, the Longleg fills its air sac for another attack, and Erend decides to go for the Watchers first. He sprints forward just as the first runs towards him, dodging out of its way in the last moment, towards the second one that is just gathering energy in its eye to shoot at him. Three fast steps, and he throws himself forward, the weight of his hammer dragging him, and the sharp end of it digs itself into the Watchers lens. The energy dissipates with a sputtering sound as the machine falls over. A twist and a short pull, and he's turning around. The second Watcher is aiming towards him while the Longleg is throwing its head back, ready to daze. He knows he's too close, but-

Something whizzes past him, and then there's sparks and metal screeching, and the watcher falls limp. Another whiz, impossibly fast, a loud burst and then something knocks him in the chest and sends him staggering back like he took a hammer to the chest. With a cough he looks up, and the Longleg has no air sac any longer. It turns to the left, screeching and flaring red, and Erend sees his opening. Breathless he raises his hammer and brings it down with all the force he can muster. A loud crash resounds through the canyon as he breaks the blaze canister and several metal plates, and the Longleg goes down with sparks.

He turns to the right and feels hope for the first time in the last two days as he sees Aloy dismount a Broadhead, stowing her bow on her back. A quick look over his shoulder reassures him that while the snapmaws are spooked, they haven't started their pursuit.

"Glad that's over with. Thanks for the help," he coughs out, still not fully recovered from the blast. She saunters over to him, hair a ruddy gold halo in the setting sun, and by the forge, he isn't too sure that hope is the only thing swelling in his chest. He pushes it down as he sees her look.

Aloy frowns as she takes him in. "What are you doing out here all alone? Where are your men?"

A part of him wants to respond that she's out here alone as well, but she probably just saved his ass, so he won't be one.

"I'm not gonna risk their lives. I don't mind putting my worthless ass on the line. But not theirs." He swallows against his dry throat, and a little against is pride. " Sorry… I had to drag you into it."

Her scowl is replaced by a small smile, and she shrugs good-naturedly. "Don't worry. This is just an average day for me. You know, take down some machines, track down some killers…" she ends with a small grin.

He plays it serious, but his lip twitches the slightest amount. " Right. I'd hate to see a busy morning for you." The adrenaline from the battle is wearing off, but now that she's here, he feels venegance close. "Ready to get started?"

She nods, but looks him over.

"Are you _sure_ you're alright?"

He can't see judgment in her face, but the question pinches nonetheless.

"Well, I'm sober, so…no." It's the truth, accompanied with a shrug and a laugh, and Aloy's eyebrows are drawn together again.

" Well, at least you're thinking straight," she replies, not the slightest smile in sight.

"Don't get used to it." He quips, trying to make the guilt sting less.

The effort is fruitless however, when Aloy asks him to tell her about Ersa's disappearance and why he wasn't with her. It's a worse blow to his chest than the exploding air sac, but Erend knows it's a blows he deserves. She didn't take him because he was a useless drunk. He can't bring himself to watch Aloy's face as he admits it, studying the ground. Because he is a coward, he follows it up with a recounting of what they did to his sisters body. Because he is broken, his voice hitches on the word _face._

He hears her breathe deeply, her voice soft and full of understanding. "I'm so sorry, Erend."

It helps, and it makes it worse. It hurts, worse than talking to anyone else about it, maybe because she demands the truth but doesn't shy away from it.

It's not the first time he has to tell this story. He was the one who had to tell the rest of the Vanguard- his legacy- and none of them had asked aloud why Ersa had left him behind. Nobody needed to ask, because Erend was so drunk he could barely get the words out. Nobody had judged him for it either, and maybe that was the worst of it.

Aloy ends her interrogation and they make their way over to the ambush site. Bile collects in his mouth and he breathes through his nose as Aloy sinks into her trance. He hears her mutter under her breath.

"Arrows scattered…. Drag marks…. Never fired…"

She jumps up, eyebrows raised with excitement.

"What did you find?"

Aloy moves across the battlefield, pointing out bloodlines and groves in the dirt.

"I think somebody moved the bodies here and scattered them," she concludes.

"Why would the Shadow Carja do that?"

"At this point, I don't think the Shadow Carja are responsible."

"Of course they are!" Erend bellows. He saw them in his nightmares. It _has_ to be them.

Aloy looks doubtfull and leads them up a trail towards the Dimmed Bones, huge metal ruins resting on top of the nearest cliff.

They step over the edge, no one in sight, when Aloy suddenly freezes, her head faced towards one of the higher beams. Erend can see silhouettes up there- three, five, ten, shadows against the setting sun. But their armor doesn't look like it should, and as he squeezes his eyes, his heart drops to his stomach and his body freezes.

"These aren't Shadow Carja- they're _my_ people, they're Oseram," he tells her, and Aloy looks between him and them, drawing her bow a second later.

"Do you always greet each other this way?" she asks as the Oseram on the walls start shouting commands to kill them.

They dodge apart as a fire arrow lands between them, and then there's chaos. Erend has a bow, but he's not a great shot, not nearly as good as Aloy, so he rips his hammer from its strap and sprints over to her.

"You take the ones on top, I'll keep them from you on the ground!" He bellows, and a second later the first Oseram screams and falls from the beams.

"On it!" Aloy shouts back, and then he does his best to shield her. Three Oseram run towards them and there is a fire and a fury in his blood that drives him onward. It's a red rush, and the next thing he sees are three bodies in front of his feet, their faces caved in like they had done with Ersa. There's a rightful fire blazing in his chest, but he feels like it's eating him up more than it is cauterizing the wound.

The fight his over as quickly as it started, but there's a strange sound ebbing through the air, and he turns to Aloy who is already ducking back into the tall grass.

"They're calling in machines!"

In that instant he can feel the thunder on the ground as something big approaches fast, and a second later two Ravagers and two Scrappers round the corner. They see him and start charging, and he knows that he can't roll away from two fucking Ravagers. But Aloy's arrows are faster, again, and he watches as both Ravagers are thrown down mid-air by two of Aloy's tearblast arrows.

Erend sees his opening and rushes through, hammer lifted and a furious scream on his lips.  
Behind him he can hear metal clanging as he makes quick work of the two Scrappers.

As he turns he sees a flash of red hair in the distance and hears his name, and then a giant shadow and a force that feels like someone threw him of a cliff as the Ravanger lunges and jumps on him. It rears it's claw to strike, and Erend knows it's over. He was so close, and now it's over.

That's when a blue blast explodes behind the machine and it roars, lunging away from him. By sheer dumb look Erend rolls to the side just before he gets trampled to death. Another blue explosion and the Ravanger is staggering next to him. He tries to sit up as a third explosion hits the beast in the head, taking it down.

The dust takes a moment to settle, and there he can see her, red hair furiously whipping in the wind, the canon of a Ravanger hoisted on her hip, a determined look on her face, and something else drops in his stomach.

Behind her, the second Ravanger is tied to the ground, a ropecaster lying next to her feet. She turns and fires two more blasts out of the canon, her body shaking with each shot. Then she throws the canon away, and takes her spear. Without any hesitation she runs forward and rams it into the machine's torso. The blue light fades as sparks erupt from its body.

With a grunt, Aloy stands up from the machine's corpse, and quickly surveys their surroundings. She looks feral and deadly, ready to spring into action, but the battlefield has grown quiet.

The fight leaves her as soon as she senses it's over. The feral look on her face is replaced with worry as she jogs over to him.

"Are you alright?"

Erend is still on the ground, unsure of what he just witnessed there, but nods and pushes himself up.

There's a body lying next to him, and the fury is back in an instant. With a kick he turns the corpse over, but- thankfully- it's nobody he recognizes.

"Oseram, not Shadow Carja. Looks like I was wrong about everything. As usual."

The only reaction she shows is tapping her focus and setting to work.

She darts from here to there, kneeling, investigating, mumbling. After a few steps his foot hits something. A stab shoots through him as he recognizes what it is, and he kneels down, fingers trembling. All Erend can focus on his the blood rushing in his ears, his heart racing, his blood pumping.

"Erend!" Aloy calls and he sees her jumping from a nearby building, jogging over to where he's crouched.

"This is Ersa's helmet," he chokes out kneeling on the ground." I thought she died in the field below, but it must've been here." He rises to his feet, and looks about the battlefield. " All this trickery. For what? Feels like it's just to torture me."

"I have a theory. But it takes a little imagination," Aloy says.

"So far your theories are better than other people's facts."

With a nod she turns around and starts talking, the first sentences only slowly making their way through the haze in his brain.  
Aloy points to a tripod, to shattered stones,tells him that she thinks they managed to paralyze his friends with a new weapon.

"No blood on their weapons, no fight," she points to the clean Vanguard weapons on the ground.

"Then why paralize them if you're only going to move them and gut them?"

"They were trying to hide something," she replies and hurries over to a bloodied boulder resting in a puddle of dried and cracked blood, and his stomach turns at the sight of it.

"The boulder they used to bash Ersa's face in."

"Or someone elses," Aloy replies, careful excitement on her face. Erend's stomach drops, and he's unable to reply. She staggers a few feet back and points to leather straps lying a few feet behind the bloodied rock.

"These leather straps have been cut, as if they took the armor of someone…"

Erend knows what she's trying to say, but his brain barricades itself against the idea.

"That can't be. Her body is lying in state in Meridian. I saw it!"

"You said that she was unrecognizable. Maybe they switched another body into her armor, someone around the same size… and mutilated it enough, so it could be anyone, even Ersa."

He stares at her, throat choked, and Aloy's eyebrows rise in silent conviction as she steps closer to him.

"Go back to Meridian. Take another look at that body. If it's really Ersa… of course, I'm wrong. But if I'm right…" she trails off, and the hope in her face is enough to stop his brain. She was right about Olin. She was right about the Shadow Carja not being responsible. Somehow, she can see the unseen and connect the dots, and he can see in her face that she believes what she says. His stomach sinks, his heart hammers.

"Then my sister could be alive! I'm going. Meet me back there when you can!"

Aloy nods. "I'm going to look around some more, I'll see you there."

There's a another fire burning in his chest now and it's a wild hope.


	3. Uncomfortable

"_I can't move troops to the border without provoking the Oseram. But I could send a few Vanguardsmen… and perhaps an exceptionally gifted Nora as well?"_

Erend suppresses a growl as he recalls Avad's words from the day before. If he's honest, it's less the words — Aloy certainly deserves the praise— but the look and step forward that accompanied them. He doesn't know if the rumors about Avad and Ersa are true, and fire and spit, he doesn't want to think about it, but even if they _aren't_, he still can think of a good dozen reasons why the Kings praise rubs him entirely the wrong way. Sure, one of them might be his… fondness for Aloy, he will admit as much, but there is a reason he thought Ersa and Aloy will get along well- both of them are _free. _And Avad might be likened to the sun all day and all night, but he is tethered to his throne and to his people.

_So why that damned look?_

"So cap, is she really as pretty as they say?"

Irritation turns to anger as Erend turns away from where his eyes are searching the bridge, ready to give Andrik a good punch.

"_Ouch!_"

As he turns he sees that Karan has beat him to it: Andrik is rubbing the back of his head with an insulted look on his face while his second-in-command crosses his arms.

"What _matters_ is if she's as proficient as they say. Our goal is to get Ersa back, not to help you with one of your conquests," Karan snaps. Erend gives him an appreciative nod. The older man was— _is_ one of Ersas most trusted companions, and Erend knows he can count on him. In the past two weeks that he's been staggering around trying to fill Ersa's shoes, Karan has helped him more than once, and he is grateful for him, even if his competence makes Erend feel even more useless.

Andrik shrugs, not bothered. "A guy can ask, can't he?"

"A guy can remember that Aloy is the only reason we even know Ersa could still be alive, so a guy would do better to shut up," Erend barks. He knows he's being hypocritical, because her looks were the first thing he himself had noticed, and Andrik hasn't even met her. But back then his sisters life hadn't been on the line and he hadn't seen what Aloy was capable of. Andrik is a good guy, but his comment makes Erend grit his teeth. His shoulders feel as if they're made of steel with all the tension they've been holding in the last weeks, and he knows that spending the next week watching Aloy dodge Andrik's flirting will thoroughly exhaust his patience. He needs her to find Ersa, and distracting her is off limits. He willfully pushes down the tiny part of his brain that thinks that that's only half of the reason he wants Andrik to keep his thoughts to himself.

"I thought we were leaving at dawn. Where is she?" Andrik asks as he's leaning himself back against a bridge post.

"At _first light_ is what we agreed upon, I believe,"a voice rings out behind him. Andrik snaps upright, and Erend and his men turn towards the path next to the bridge, Aloy crosses the last few steps of distance between them, eyebrow raised defiantly, a bunch of wild ember in her hand. "_She_ was here then, but because the rest of you weren't here, I went down to the river and gathered some herbs in preparation."

Andrik opens his mouth to reply, and that can't mean anything good, but before he can form the words, Karan steps forward and turns to Aloy, his hammer conveniently swinging just so that it slightly hits Andrik in the back of his head.

"Apologies, m'am. We ought to have been here sooner, there is no time to lose."

Erend watches Aloy's eyes linger on Karan's hammer for a second, the slightest smirk on her lips, before she scowls and shakes her head.

"My name is Aloy, no need to call me anything else."

With a gratuitous motion that Erend couldn't pull off if he wanted to, Karan bows his head. " Karan. At your service, Aloy." Then he looks expectantly to Erend, who feels like a complete ass because he was too slow again. Too slow to call Andrik to order, too late to gather his men, too late to apologize. Karan's meaningful look feels like a gesture of pity, even though Erend knows it's one of respect.

_Respect you haven't earned._

He clears his throat. "Apologies, Aloy. Karan here is my second-in-command. This bung over here is Andrik, these two are Beren and Enoch — they're brothers — and this is Oren."  
Each of his men nod to her as he calls their names, and Erend feels that the introduction is far more lackluster than it ought to be for a Vanguard strike team, but for the life of him, he can't recall what Ersa used to say. He'd have to ask her. This time, he'd learn from her as much as he could.

Aloy returns their nods, plainly studying each of them for a brief second. At the end, her eyes meet his, searching, and Erend knows what she's looking for. He meets her gaze steadily. After a second, the green in her eyes becomes the tiniest bit warmer, and she nods, apparently pacified.

"Then let's go."

She strides right through them and presses the wild ember against Andrik's chest without any further comment. Beren and Enoch snicker as he starts to tie the bundle to his sack where it can dry. His men start following her up the ridge, towards the way that will lead them north to Pitchcliff, and Andrik shoulders his sack before he grins.

"So she _is_ pretty."

This time, Erend is not too late. Karan's and his hand smack Andriks head exactly at the same time.

* * *

About an hour past noon Aloy looks over her shoulder and let's herself fall back next to him. Until then, she had steadily led the group, always on the lookout, only slowing when she was engaging her focus.

His men had given her some distance— by Erend's orders. They're good men, and he'd easily die for each of them, but Erend remembers how uncomfortable and overwhelmed she had looked back in Mother's Heart during the celebrations. Aloy wasn't used to being surrounded by people, and his men weren't exactly considerate. Since yesterday when he'd broken the news to them, all of them had been gripped by a sense of restlessness and a thirst for revenge, and he was too grateful for her help to make her uncomfortable.

"There's a small valley between those mountains up ahead where we can rest for a bit. Unless you want to push ahead."

Erend shakes his head with a laugh. " Something you never do, I'm sure. Do you ever eat?"

"Sometimes," she shrugs, but the corner of her mouth twitches.

He takes a look around at his men. If he asked, they'd march all the way to Pitchcliff without a stop or complaint, but Erend can see that the hours on the road have taken their toll.

"Let's rest."

Aloy nods and scans the area around them, apparently content with her findings. She starts walking faster again, and Erend has to push down the urge to follow. Instead, Karan slips next to her, and he can see her tense up for a moment. This was exactly what he didn't want.

"If I might ask, what does this… device show you, Aloy?"

Erend sees her contemplate for a second, and then her shoulders drop and she starts answering him. After a second of contemplating it, Erend decides against interceding.

"Why is Karan allowed to talk to her and I'm not?" Andrik asks behind Erend's right ear.

"Because Karan can behave himself, and you've already insulted her once today," Erend growls back.

Andrik mumbles something but falls silent as he sees Erend's face.

Up ahead, Karan and Aloy are chatting amiably, laughing now and then. He should be happy that she's getting along with someone— their trip could last at least two weeks after all— but it doesn't sit right with him.

Aloy and Karan are chuckling ahead of him, and Erend's teeth grind together. He really hopes he isn't seeing what he thinks he's seeing. Karan is a good man, but he's twice her age. But he can see why, with the force of nature that she is, that wouldn't stop somebody.

Yesterday when she arrived at the palace she was suddenly clad in Blazon Armor that barred her midriff and clung to her body, and the only thing that kept his mind on the task and his eyes from Aloy's navel was the thought of Ersa suffering somewhere in a dark dungeon. Now that she was walking ahead of him, hips swaying slightly with each step and the sun on the very well defined muscles of her back and her legs, Erend was sure he'd be sore tomorrow with the effort it took not to stare. Embarrassingly, he was doing a poor job of it, catching himself a couple of times, or at others, hearing Beren's snicker behind him.

But fire and spit, Andrik is right— she _is_ pretty.

Who could blame Karan for noticing? Sure, they are talking about tracking techniques now, and all Erend sees is respectful camaraderie between two travel companions, but _still_. Karan is, despite his years, a damn good looking bastard. The sun and the fights have done their fair share to cover his face with wrinkles and scars, but his skin is tanned from the sun, his hair fair and golden, even if there is the odd white strand showing now and then. For an Oseram, he's unusually slim, not as stocky as the rest of them, but muscular enough to make up for it. Erend has visited enough taverns with him to see women fawn over him and his stupid blue eyes, a lot of them not much older than Aloy.

_Bastard._

By the time they reach the valley and start to make camp, Erend is thoroughly annoyed.

"Do you mind clearing the perimeter?" He turns to Aloy, who frowns for a second, but shrugs in the end and jogs to the other side of the valley, scanning the surroundings. Before Karan can get any ideas, Erend turns to him and asks him to start distributing the food, something that usually is Oren's task. Karan studies him for a moment and he can see him barely suppress a smirk as he nods and turns around to comply.

"Of course, Captain."

He's sure he's hearing Beren and Enoch chuckle behind him, and Erend turns away to study the landscape as he feels himself blush.

In a week he'll have Ersa back, and she can wear her own damned boots again so that he doesn't have to stumble around in them and feel like a gods-damned fool.

Aloy comes back to them without any news, and an awkward silence settles over their group as they all silently bow over their lunch. He can feel her eyes on him a few times, searching, probing, but she doesn't say anything. Her shoulders are stiff again.

They rest for an hour, and then they continue their track the same way they have so far, with Aloy slipping to the front, leading them north.

Mostly they make good time. The further they get from Meridian, the more machines they see, usually further away. At some point they happen upon a small herd of tramplers, and Erend has to grin as his men disbelievingly watch while Aloy takes down two of them by herself while the Vanguard collectively handles the other two. As they bring down the last one, she pushes her arm in all the way to the shoulder and rips out the machine's heart with a well practiced twist of the hand. His men step back and let her do the looting— it's easy to see she's far better at it. Despite their protest, Aloy disperses the parts between the men and herself.

Above them the sun crawls their way over the sky as they slowly make their way north, the men chatting amongst themselves as Aloy strides ahead. Now and then he can see her scanning, and Erend has the feeling she is searching for something.

Once she startles, only to sink down disappointed, and he hears her mumble_ Grazers_. She leads them around the herd without disturbing it.

Several times, when he's not busy thinking about Ersa or wishing for a drink, Erend considers going up to her and striking up a conversation, but he has no idea what to say, and he's afraid to make an ass of himself again, so he leaves her be.

* * *

They decide to make camp at a river bend next to a cliff face. He sees Aloy scan their surroundings.

"So what is it this time? Machines to take down, or killers to track?" he asks as he steps next to her, and his stupid quip is rewarded with the first genuine smile he's seen on her face all day.

"No machines except a few Glinthawks south of here, but they don't worry me," she points in the direction, but there's just the side of the cliff. It takes him a second to realize that apparently, she can also see through mountains with her focus. " There are some goose downstream however." With that she draws her bow and skips over some rocks in the water. Within moments she is on the other side of the river and disappears into the tall grass, her red hair blending effortlessly with the color of the stalks.

Erend shakes his head and turns around to the camp. With a pang of guilt he can see that Karan has already delegated all necessary tasks, and is now watching him. He takes a few steps to Erend's side, and then looks over to the spot where Aloy has vanished.

"She seems as capable as you have said."

"I have the feeling I've only seen a fraction of what she's capable of," he replies, and Karan gives him a look that makes him blush the faintest bit. Erend looks away.

Because Karan is a bigger man then he, he let's it go.

"She seems uncomfortable."

Defensiveness raises the hairs on his back. " Of course she'd be. She was outcast from her tribe her whole life, and alone most of the time afterward. A rowdy, loud group of Oseram _would_ make her uncomfortable, that's why I told them to behave."

Karan was silent for a moment, nodding slightly to himself. "That… might be true. But a rowdy, loud group of Oseram _who don't talk to her_ might be even more uncomfortable for someone who was shunned her whole life."

Karan looks at him, his eyebrows the slightest bit raised, and Erend's stomach sinks. He thinks of Karan asking her questions earlier, and the way Erend rewarded that with giving him an unnecessary task to occupy him.

"Shit."

Karan chuckles and pats his shoulder, a gesture that feels undeserved. " You tried."

"And failed," Erend mumbles as Karan retreats back towards the rest of their group.

His men are setting up the tents for the night, and after he has pitched his own, Aloy is still nowhere to be seen. She's left her pack with them, so he gets started on hers in an effort to make up for it. Behind him, Beren and Enoch are talking about Aloy's victory over the tramplers, and he decides he has to do something.

"Listen lads… I think you can ease up on her now," he starts, but as he sees Andrik's eyes light up, he amends: " A_ little_. Don't wanna give her culture shock now, do we? Doesn't mean you can't talk to her, though. _Respectfully_."

Karan gives him a small nod, but Erend knows he's chickened out again.

There's rustling behind him and Aloy appears out of the brushes, carrying a bulk of Ridgewood and two turkeys. As she starts to settle on the ground to pluck them, Oren makes his way over to her.

"Let me handle those. You did the catchin', I do the cookin'."Oren is a big mountain of a man, huge even for Oseram standards, but ironically one of the gentlest of the Vanguard. At his low-pitched, rumbling request, Aloy hesitates for a second, always assessing and analyzing the situation, but then she smiles and hands them over.

"Never been much of a cook myself, anyway."

"But an excellent huntress, I can see. Straight through the head."

"Can't afford to waste the meat when you're the only one feeding yourself."

"And good training for aiming at anything with even bigger heads."

She laughs then. "That, too."

As Oren sits down to take care of the birds, Aloy looks over to him and sees his progress on her tent.

"You didn't have to do that."

He shrugs nonchalantly. "Eh, had nothing better to do, and you were already making yourself useful, so I thought I should do the same."

Her face is hard to read, but she nods and touches his shoulder lightly before she takes the straps out of his hands.

The spot on his arm stays warm for a long while.

* * *

This rest is different then the first. Not exuberant— it can't be, given the cause of their mission— and not fully comfortable yet, but not as awkward as the first. When the odd lull in conversation happens, it's simply because they don't know each other well enough yet.

But this, finally, is something Erend is good at. Rambling, telling jokes, making people comfortable. So he does. Little stories about failed flirting attempts— none of them his stories, of course— or Vanguard mishaps, and soon he has her laughing, has all of them laughing.

It doesn't take them long to make short work of the two birds Oren has expertly prepared, and the sky turns from red to purple to blue. Around them, the crickets start their songs, signaling the evenings arrival.

" I can take last watch, I don't mind getting up early," Karan offers, and Oren volunteers to join him.

"I'm not tired yet, I'll take first, then," Aloy says.

Across from him, he can see two devilish glints flash in Andrik and Beren's eyes, albeit of a different kind. Before Andrik can speak up, Beren steps on his foot.

"Andrik and I can take middle, he still has to finish telling me about this girl he's met and her brother, who is apparently a very interesting prospect for one lonely Oseram Vanguard, warrior and hero. " He pounds his chest with a laugh, and replaces it with the stupidest, most calculated look of fake pondering as he turns to his brother.

"Enoch, you're probably tired right? You haven't marched this long in a while, with your busted foot."

Enoch, who had twisted his ankle _months_ ago, makes no point of concealing his grin as he yawns deeply, and Erend's scalp starts tingling.

_Bastards_.

"Brother, I am surprised I'm still awake right now. You know, I _really_ need to go to bed. So sorry I can't take a shift today."

"No no, we need you strong tomorrow. Cap' can take the first shift, and then we're all set up, right, Cap?"

Steel to his bones, he's going to strangle them.

It doesn't take long for them to disappear into their tents, and silence settles around the camp. Aloy busies herself with the Ridgewood she has gathered earlier and starts making arrows.  
Erend tends to the fire, trying to come up with something to say, but she beats him to it.

"How are you doing?"

Her eyes are on him, appraising.

"Haven't had a drink in nearly a week, so could be better. It helps that I don't have to mourn Ersa now, but the worry isn't exactly _better."_

_"_You didn't eat a lot."

"Eh, I'll eat better once we have her back, and once I can have an ale with it. Before that, my stomach is denying me its work."

The scowl is back on her face. "Are you in pain?"

"Nah, just… queasy. Happens to the best of us, right?" The worried line between her eyebrows is back and he just can't have that. " It _does_ happen to you, right?", he quips, and Aloy rolls her eyes.

"Put some water on, I'll be back in a second."

Without further warning she slips away into the darkness, silent and swift like a Stalker. Because he has the feeling that protest is futile, he complies and puts on of the pots back on the fire, and fills it with water.

Two minutes later, Aloy reappears silently next to him, some kind of dark purple root in her hands, dripping with water.

"Ochrebloom root. The tea will help your stomach."

He watches her slip a small knife from a leather strap on her boot, using it to peel and slice the root before she puts it into two cups, a treacherous warmth spreading in his chest.

"Thank you," he murmurs as she hands him the tea. Silence falls over them while they both sip carefully.

She stares into her cup, her thumb absentmindedly tracing its rim, and Erend feels guilty.

_Time to man up, Erend_.


End file.
